Farm Rich Giveaway-- 2 coupons for free food!

Have you heard of Farm Rich before?

I had, but had not tried the food.  They sent me coupons to try two items of my choice, do a review, and give away two free coupons to one of you lucky people!

So first of all, I typically shop at Kroger.  I looked briefly for Farm Rich while I was there and did not see it so I ended up going to Walmart and getting my products there.  However, if I would have bothered to try Farm Rich's online product locator, I would have seen that my Kroger does INDEED carry them.

I chose the Mozzarella Bites wrapped in pizza dough and the Marinara Stuffed Mozzarella Sticks.

Yep.  2 products with mozzarella.

Can you tell I love cheese??

Now they also have mini quesedillas, mushrooms, meatballs, stuffed pretzel bites, and tons more! 

But we went with the cheesey stuff.

First off---the mozzarella bites.  They are little squares and you can eat 4 for a serving size.  I love that they are encased in pizza dough.  I baked them on our pampered chef stone and they came out perfectly.  Even my husband (not a frozen food/snacky food fan) came back and got more!  That is HUGE.

Second, we had the marinara stuffed mozzarella sticks.  It's so cool that the sauce is on the INSIDE of the cheesestick!  These also have a great flavor, I like the breading the most.  You only get 2 in a serving size though(160 calories), so for those of us counting calories, you gotta be careful. And again, my husband ate these every time I made them.

Yes, "every time I made them."  The bags you get with Farmrich contain a lot and I was able to use each bag about 3 separate times to make snacks for my family!  You can cook the entire bag at once if you are the Duggars or are having a party.  :-)

Soooo, now the part you all are super interested in...winning the giveaway!

Farmrich will send one of you lucky ducks two coupons to try out their goodies!

Here are the deets:

Enter to win!

--mandatory-- Visit  Farm Rich and comment here to tell us which snack you are the most excited to try out!

--remember to leave your email address with this entry. 

--bonus entries--

• Followers of my blog get 2 extra entries (just comment "I follow-1" & "I follow-2" to get the bonus)
• Leave a comment on any other of my blog posts, then comment here with the link--1 extra entry
• Tweet about this giveaway!  1 entry (leave tweet link as a comment)
• Follow me on pinterest?  Give yourself another entry!

Boring fine print---
Open to all US residents 18 and over.  The company is responsible for sending the prize.  Giveaway closes August 10th at noon EST.  Winner will be announced August 11th and notified by email.  Winner has 48 hours to respond and claim their prize before another winner will be chosen.

UPDATE-- giveaway closed
#18 ---Shannon is the winner.  She left no email address though.  I will send her a tweet and she has 48hrs to respond.....Monday, 5:50 PM EST before a new winner will be named.

Hives

Our youngest had a stomach virus.

Then he got hives.

The doctor told us to try Zyrtec for him until the hives cleared up.

Guess what the zyrtec did?  Wired the little guy.  Two nights he didn't go to sleep until after midnight.

Now we're on benadryl and he's much more calm. :)  Still covered in hives though.  Any idea how long they will last?

Red, White, & Blue Pinterest Drink. Nailed it. (Or "How Pinterest Destroyed My Trust")

Hey guess what.  Pinterest tells lies.  Lies, I tell you!  This happened last week and I am finally brave enough to tell you my story.

I decided to try this layered drink from pinterest.  

found on pinterest, original is HERE

7up, Hawaiian punch, and blue Gatorade.  ALLEGEDLY, the drink with the highest sugar content sinks and thus the drinks form an awesome striped effect.

also unsourced at pinterest.  

Cool, right?

Except when I tried it, I got this.

this is my "thumbs down" for the drink debacle

A reddish, slightly brownish mix of 3 drinks. No stripes. No layers.  No awesomeness.  Pinterest, you LIED to me!  

I had poured my 3 drinks in the cup, one at a time, sugary-est (new word!) first and it was a big fail.  I even tried AGAIN later in the week (you are correct, I am a stubborn old mule) with different brands of punch/etc.  Same result.  

Pinterest, I have forgiven you...although am still a bit skiddish around the recipes section now.  It's gonna take awhile for you to earn back the trust.

Oh hi. It is 190* outside. 5 Things to do INSIDE.

If you live somewhere that has been having 75* weather lately, keep that to yourself.  I live in the Midwest which is also known as the BROILER right now.  

So hot you cannot go outside.  Well you can but you'll drop over dead after five minutes (you think this is an exaggeration...)


In honor of the wretched heat, I present to you......(drum roll please.  humor me people.  DRUM ROLL)

isn't the sad faced sun a nice touch?
Although it looks like a child's drawing,
I drew it myself. 

1. --Put the swimsuits on the kids and get them in the tub, turn out all the lights and add glow sticks.  This looks so fun!  Our Dollar Tree often has the glow sticks (or Michael's craft store in the dollar section) and I aim to pick some up soon.

from pinterest via happy home fairy

2.--Have the neighbor kids over, build a fort in the living room, and watch a movie.  Standard idea but it never gets old for kids!  For bonus fun, give each kid paper money and set up your "concession stand" in the kitchen.  They can use their "money" to buy a bowl of popcorn, juice box, mini candy bar, etc.


3.-- Make this. 

from pinterest via So How's It Taste

No bake strawberry cake.  I made this on July 4th and it was easy, only took a few ingredients, tasted great, AND you don't have to turn your oven on for it!


4.-- Help your kids make their own jet packs. 2 old 2liter bottles and felt!  How cute is this?!

from pinterest via Doodle Craft

5-- Organize your stash of stuff for Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.  I know it is July and we're swimming in pools of our own sweat.  But November and National Collection Week will be here SOON.  Start organizing what you've got into gallon bags, or even the shoe boxes, according to gender and age.  


linking at: Serenity Now 

5 Updates You Don't Care About

A few things I have noted recently:

-- our toddler can make himself throw up by shoving his hand down his throat when he gets tired of waiting to be let down from the highchair.  This really started my morning off on the right foot today.

-- when you don't let the dog out at the same time every day, she will poop.  And Newton's Law or something demands it will be diarrhea.

-- vacuuming during the day is a waste.  Someone will immediately grind a banana into the carpet when you aren't looking.

-- keep the cans of spray paint hidden from your 9 yr old son.  Trust me on this.

-- the pinterest red/white/blue drink DOES NOT FREAKING WORK.  I will elaborate more on that later.

Bookworm Party for a 2 yr old

Our youngest recently turned 2 and had a reading/bookworm themed party.  I thought I would share some of the details with you in case you want to throw a book party for your own little readers!

Here is the simple table runner I made---pages of an old Clifford phonics book taped together.  Some of my son's favorite books served as decor on the food table.

Water bottles had book page wrappers (this was from a Corduroy book).

The highlight of the party had to be the inflatable bookworm!  He was around $10 from Oriental Trading Company and was the BEST ten bucks I spent on this party!  I envisioned him just as a photo prop for kids to stand next to, but they really enjoyed carrying it around all over the room!

My Birthday Boy's shirt says "Little Bookworm" and is from this etsy shop. 

Cake & Food. I decided to save money and make the cake myself.  I did strawberry jell-o poke cupcakes with sprinkles on top.  The adorable cupcake toppers came from this etsy shop.  

The rest of our food was simple for an early lunch.  Mini ham & cheese sandwiches, fruit, pretzels, and cucumber slices.

Invitations. Well. I took a picture and can't find it now. I wrote "Our Little Bookworm Is Turning 2!" and then the party details.  I used library cards and envelopes and they looked VERY similar to this idea that I had on pinterest:

from pinterest via family fun

My library cards came from this shop on etsy.

Party Favors.  Each child got a book...big surprise, ha!  I wrapped them and handed them out while the Birthday Boy was opening his gifts.  That way the other kids would kind of have something to do.  You can also hand out baggies of gummy worms "bookworms," but I worried about choking with this age group, so we just stuck with the books.

Activities.

Since the little attendees were all in the 2yr old age range, we didn't do a lot of structure. I had a bean bag toss library game set up and a bookmark making station.  The bean bag game was a clearance find from Oriental Trading Company.

Gifts.
The perk of a book themed party is that everyone knows the honoree must like books!  Our guy got a lot of great ones!  He loves this Little People flap book from his great grandma.

amazon

I hope that sharing our little homemade book party gives you some ideas and inspiration!  You can always see more of my kids party ideas on my pinterest board here. :)

shared at A Little Knick Knack

4 Pinterest Tips: You need to know

Pinterest is like a giant online bulletin board where you can "pin" things for later and see what other people have pinned.  Here are some tips to get the most out of pinterest:

1. Use more boards than just the ones Pinterest starts you off with.  

You can add new boards that help categorize your things. For example I have a board titled Learning Time, that I use to dump a lot of my education/teaching things on.  You can break it down further (and I will do this soon) and have a literacy board, a beginning of the school year board, science experiments, etc.

2. Pin from the original source.

Nothing stinks more than clicking on a pin for a tutorial of how to make the best ever brownies/quilt/dress and finding that the link doesn't go anywhere. Well maybe being the person who DESIGNED that quilt/dress/madeTHEbrownies and isn't getting credit for it...that may stink worse.

3. It's ok to promote your business.

Sometimes I follow a pinner because I want to see what they have new on the blog or in their etsy shop.  Create a board "New in the shop"  or "New on XYZ Blog" for some of those pins to go.  Then people can easily follow along for updates without feeling spammed on other boards.

4. Pinterest is not a spectator sport.

I am baffled when I click on a profile and they 0 pins.  *yawn*  You will get the most out of pinterest by being active.  Create your own boards and pin from websites, repin things you search for and like (I often search for funny stuff.  My Quotes/Inspirations/Funnies board is by far my largest.  Sorry but I will forever think a funny animal picture or fart joke is worth remembering.)  The more you pin, the more people will SEE your pins and follow you.  The more you pin, the more YOU will see and want to follow!